I read all the above books as a kid (fan of Katy too) and my oldest daughter loved them too... although she always had a lust for reading so was reading Asimov and Grimm and whatever else at the same age.

They all sounded so "English".

We knew kids that went to boarding school as kids; mainly the station owners children (fact of living in isolated towns out west.. and its still why kids out that way still board; though nowadays the gov funds the remote area kids boarding), though my father was very much against boarding school, so my older brothers and sisters had the choice of "correspondence school" or travel 3 hours each way. Some of the primary schools would have a bit of classroom for the high school students in class.

Tom Browns book left me in horror of English boarding schools.

What were those large books that were like an "Annual"? Loved those.

We played Lacrosse at school.... that and Vigaro; though mostl of the times it was on a dirt field not a lawn one. I always thought it was an "English" sport.

One of my favourite books as a child was an English book called "Bunchie". Tracked it down about 20 years ago but it was for sale in some little villiage in England (no internet).

The Collective Brain: The synoptic serendipity that comes when interesting thoughts from interesting and interested people get together. And the whole is always more than the sum of its parts.

Here in Germany, there was once a line of youth books called the "Burg Schreckenstein" series in the 70s & 80s.
I think it was popular, but Iä#ve never met fans of it (although I do know they are out there, because there i a web site on the series out there.

It's about a part of a vboys-only boarding school which must go into a castle because the school rooms have become too small.
And the boys decide to transform themselves by adaping rules they believe the "Knights" of the castle would have had : Honesty, truth and honour (well, partly).

Needless to say that on the other side of the lake the castle stands next to there is a girls-only bording school, and both parties often meddle with one another by playing tricks on one another.

Unfortunately there doesn't exist any English-language Wikipedia entry (which surprises me a little bit, given that the series was somewhat popular at its time) - here is the German-language entry : http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burg_SchreckensteinI assume that translation progams might be able to translate it (like the google translation program, for example).

author3 wrote:I know people normally reject the works of Enid Blyton these daysBut has anyone else read the amazing Famous Five seriesThe series consists of 21 booksAnd features five main characters (surprise,surprise) Julian,Dick,Anne,George and Timmy the dogI would highly recommend this series as it is most lkely my third favorite ever written ( my first being Discworld and second being Redwall )

Yes, I haven't read all 21 but I enjoyed reading the Famous Five series when I was young. We used to be able to take books we really liked to school so the teacher could read them to the whole class. My friend and I brought Famous Five books, think he read us 3 or 4 of them.

There were no public health laws in Ankh-Morpork. It would be like installing smoke detectors in Hell.
- Feet of clay.

I had read, avidly, most of the Famous Five, wanted to be George, Six Cousins, all the Adventure series, Mallory Towers & most of Enid Blighton's other books as well. As a child that is, found one at a car boot, recently, original copy & started reading it & boy was it boring.